McCain Defeats Romney in Florida Vote

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM and KIRK SEMPLE
Published: January 29, 2008

Senator John McCain won a closely contested Florida primary on Tuesday night, capturing the biggest delegate prize of the primary season and adding a crucial jolt of momentum to his campaign as the nominating fight expands into a national race next Tuesday.

The Arizona senator bested his chief rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, after drawing on the support of moderate and socially liberal voters.

Lagging far behind is Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, who has virtually staked his campaign on a strong showing in this state. Mr. Giuliani, who outspent his rivals and spent weeks campaigning across the Florida peninsula, is fighting for third place with former Gov. Mike Huckabee, a potentially fatal performance on a do-or-die night for the former mayor.

----------------

Gus: see toon at top... 

“Because I love America in this time of war, I feel I have to stand aside for our party and our country,” he said.

Mr. Romney faced a series of enormous challenges in the campaign, not the least of which was trying to reconcile the moderate political views he espoused as the governor of Massachusetts, a liberal state, with the more conservative views he championed on the campaign. That tension — and his decision to change positions on a number of emotionally charged issues, including renouncing his past support for abortion rights — led his rivals to continually lambaste him as a flip-flopper.

Then there was the question of his Mormon religion. After the candidacy of Mr. Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, exploded in Iowa, where it was fueled by evangelical voters, Mr. Romney was moved to give a major speech in Texas defending his faith and denouncing the rise of secularism.

Earlier today:

“And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). ‘They’ are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever.

“This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation - to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”

Unleashed